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Posted: 26-08-2013 08:43 Post subject:

Britain to be roped into EU rescue aid for Greece
The European Commission is planning use of EU budget funds for the next rescue of Greece, roping Britain into future responsibility for shoring up the eurozone currency structure.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
8:00PM BST 25 Aug 2013

Günther Oettinger, Germany's EU commissioner, said on Sunday that a third package worth over €10bn will be needed in 2014 and will partly come in the form of direct help rather than a debt haircut for existing creditors.

The Greek daily Kathimerini said Athens and Brussels are negotiating the use of EU structural funds that draw on the collective EU budget, co-funded by the British taxpayer and other non-euro states.

Most of the rescue aid so far for Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, and Spain's banking system has come from the eurozone's rescue machinery, outside the EU treaty structure. Britain has provided bilateral aid to Ireland, and is involved in EMU debt rescue policies through the International Monetary Fund, but has otherwise stood aloof.

Use of EU budget funds appears not to be targeted against the British government but would have the effect of drawing Britain into the morass, compelled to spend scarce resources perpetuating an EMU policy that many view as deeply misguided. It would also set a precedent that may be extended to Portugal if it needs fresh help, and possibly larger countries if Europe's recovery falters.

The Greek crisis has become a hot theme in Germany's elections, with opposition leaders accusing Chancellor Angela Merkel of hoodwinking the nation about the true costs of holding the euro together.

Mrs Merkel said on Sunday said that extra help for Greece might be needed in 2014 but said another debt restructuring is out of the question. "I warn emphatically against further debt haircuts. It could set off a domino effect and once again shatter investor confidence in the eurozone," she said

Analysts said the claims are a smokescreen to disguise the real concern that further debt relief in Greece must come from the EMU bail-out funds, inflicting losses on taxpayers in creditor states for the first time. This would require a line-item in Germany's budget and cause a storm in the Bundestag.

Professor Bernd Lucke. leader of Germany's anti-euro party AfD, was attacked by Left-wing radicals over the weekend, one carrying a knife. Prof Lucke said the assault smacked of the "Weimar Republic" where political disputes were settled by "storm troopers" on the streets.

Manfred Güllner, head of the polling group Forsa, said AfD may soon may soon break out above its 2pc to 3pc support level, crossing the 5pc line needed to win seats next month. This would scramble the elections and create an anti-euro voice in German politics that could scarcely be ignored.

"For a long time I thought they had no chance, but I am not so sure any longer. A lot of people out there, speaking very loudly, who say they think they're are being expropriated by the state. This needs watching very closely," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10265302/Britain-to-be-roped-into-EU-rescue-aid-for-Greece.html

Posted: 30-08-2013 11:03 Post subject:

Immigration surge driven by eurozone crisis
Britain has seen a massive surge in the number of immigrants coming here to work as they flee economic collapse in Eurozone countries such as Spain and Italy, official figures have disclosed for the first time.
By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent
6:16AM BST 30 Aug 2013

The number of Spaniards registering for a National Insurance number rocketed from just over 30,000 in 2011-12 to more than 45,500 last year, a jump of 50 per cent.
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures also showed sharp increases in arrivals from Italy (up 35 per cent to nearly 33,000) and Portugal (up 43 per cent to 24,500).

The figures illustrate how citizens of countries with rampant unemployment are heading to Britain in the hope of finding work. Spain has a jobless rate of more than 26 per cent compared with Britain’s 7.8 per cent.

Robert Rowthorn, emeritus professor of economics at King’s College, Cambridge, said the influx from southern European countries would continue as long as their economies remained in trouble.
“The position of some of these people, particularly the young, is quite desperate,” he said.
“It will continue into the future so long as economic conditions are better here in the UK, where there is still relatively strong demand for labour.
“Once you have had immigration at these levels it will carry on for some time. That is because you will also get ‘chain’ migration because communities build up as people come to where they have friends and relatives.”

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch UK, said: “This is a significant increase in the number of south Europeans coming to Britain to search for work.
“Because we don’t know how many are also going home, nor how long people are staying, we think the impact on overall immigration figures will be much less than these raw numbers.
“In the medium term, however, this is certainly a space to watch.”

Registrations for NI numbers are used as an indicator of how many people are coming from overseas to work in this country.
The DWP’s data showed a small rise in the number of eastern European immigrants applying for NI numbers was overshadowed by the surge in arrivals from the rest of the European Union.
According to the figures 209,000 eastern European immigrants were handed NI numbers last year, a one per cent rise on the previous 12 months, but other EU countries combined showed a 22 per cent jump, to 176,000.

New figures from the DWP also showed a 44 per cent rise in the number of Greeks coming to Britain to work, although numbers were far smaller at 8,680 last year

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10275296/Immigration-surge-driven-by-eurozone-crisis.html

All this brings the usual 'population growth' problems, but also makes the job market more difficult for native born Brits, who may resent "all these foreigners comin' over 'ere and taking our jobs." Failures in EU policies are being exported out of the Eurozone.

Posted: 30-08-2013 12:18 Post subject:

Posted: 14-10-2013 16:55 Post subject:

Things are moving faster than I'd realised in France:

Time to take bets on Frexit and the French franc?
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Politics and society Last updated: October 14th, 2013

We have a minor earthquake in France. A party committed to withdrawal from the euro, the restoration of French franc, and the complete destruction of monetary union has just defeated the establishment in the Brignoles run-off election.

It is threatening Frexit as well, which rather alters the political chemistry of Britain's EU referendum.

Marine Le Pen's Front National won 54pc of the vote. It was a bad defeat for the Gaulliste UMP, a party at risk of disintegration unless it can find a leader in short order.

President Hollande's Socialists were knocked out in the first round, due to mass defection to the Front National by the working-class Socialist base. The Socialists thought the Front worked to their advantage by splitting the Right. They have at last woken up to the enormous political danger.

The Front National is now the most popular party in France with 24pc according to a new Ifop poll. Both the two great governing parties of the post-War era have fallen behind for the first time ever. The Gaullistes (UMP) are at 22pc, and the Socialists at 21pc.

I am watching this with curiosity, since Marine Le Pen told me in June that her first order of business on setting foot in the Elysee Palace (if elected) would be to announce a referendum on membership of the European Union, with a "rendez-vous" one year later:

"I will negotiate over the points on which there can be no compromise. If the result is inadequate, I will call for withdrawal. Europe is just a great bluff. On one side there is the immense power of sovereign peoples, and on the other side are a few technocrats."

Asked if she intended to pull France of the euro immediately, she hesitated for a second or two and then said: "Yes, because the euro blocks all economic decisions. France is not a country that can accept tutelage from Brussels."

Officials will be told to draw up plans for the restoration of the franc. Eurozone leaders will face a stark choice: either work with France for a "sortie concerted" or coordinated EMU break-up: or await their fate in a disorderly collapse.

"We cannot be seduced. The euro ceases to exist the moment that France leaves, and that is our incredible strength. What are they going to do, send in tanks?"

Her four sticking points on EU membership are withdrawal from the currency, the restoration of French border control, the primacy of French law, and what she calls "economic patriotism", the power for France to pursue "intelligent protectionism" and safeguard its social model. "I cannot imagine running economic policy without full control over our own money," she said.

As I wrote in June, the Front has been scoring highest in core Socialist cantons, clear evidence that it is breaking out of its Right-wing enclaves to become the mass movement of the white working class.

Hence the new term in the French press "Left-Le-Penism". She is outflanking the Socialists with attacks on banks and cross-border capitalism. The party recently recruited Anna Rosso-Roig, a candidate for the Communists in the 2012 elections.

Mrs Le Pen's EMU withdrawal plan is based on a study by economists from l'École des Hautes Études in Paris led by Professor Jacques Sapir. It concludes that France, Italy, and Spain would all benefit from EMU-exit, restoring lost labour competitiveness at a stroke without years of depression.

Their working assumption is that the eurozone's North-South imbalances have already gone beyond the point of no return. Attempts to reverse this by deflation and wage cuts must entail mass unemployment and loss of the industrial core.

Prof Sapir said the gains are greatest in a coordinated break-up with capital controls where central bank intervention steers the new currencies to target levels. The model assumes that the D-mark and guilder are held to a 15pc rise against the old euro, while the franc falls 20pc.

The gains are less if EMU collapses in acrimony and currencies overshoot. This would inflict a violent deflation shock on Germany, but would still be strongly positive for the Latin bloc.

I don't wish to get into a debate about whether or not the Front National has genuinely purged its anti-Semites, or whether its immigration and culture policies must inevitably lead to a drastic showdown with France's 5m-plus Muslims. This is a finance blog.

My own impression is that she is more relaxed about gay rights and abortion than she lets on, closer in some ways to the assassinated Dutch populist Pim Fortuyn than to her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who in turn complains that she picked up "petit bourgeois" views in Paris schools. Twisted Evil

The fact is that her campaign of "dédiabolisation" or image detox seems to have worked. Only a minority of voters still thinks the Front is a "threat to democracy". Mrs Le Pen is winning over white working-class women in droves. The feminised Front is no longer the party of the angry white male.

etc...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100025783/time-to-take-bets-on-frexit-and-the-french-franc/

Posted: 16-10-2013 07:53 Post subject:

Prisoner votes Supreme Court decision expected

The Supreme Court will rule later whether prisoners have the right to vote under European Union rules - even though they cannot under British law.
Two prisoners - one from England and the other from Scotland - say that EU law gives them a right to vote.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has already told the UK to end the blanket ban on prisoners voting.
Parliament is considering legislation, but hasn't yet decided what to do.

Convicted prisoners in the UK are banned from voting on the basis that they have forfeited that right by breaking the law and going to jail.
Successive governments have wanted to maintain that position but the ECHR said a blanket ban on prisoners voting was disproportionate.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will rule on two related cases in which prisoners say that separate European Union law and treaties trump the UK ban - meaning that inmates have a right to vote in local, European and potentially Scottish Parliamentary elections.

Peter Chester raped and strangled his niece in 1977 and was jailed for life for her murder. He has served his minimum term but the Parole Board has refused to release him because it says he is too dangerous.
In 2008, he tried to join the electoral role so that he could vote in the elections for the European Parliament. The Ministry of Justice said he could not until the law was changed.

In the second case, George McGeoch, serving life in a Scottish prison, argued that EU law allowed him to vote in local and European elections.

Although the ECHR has already told the UK to change the law, these two cases focus on whether prisoners as EU citizens have a right to vote even if Westminster says different.

Last year, the government conceded that it would have to change the law to allow some prisoners to vote.
Ministers have published a draft bill which is being considered by Parliament. The proposals include limiting the vote to inmates who are serving either less than six months or four years.

A further 2,352 inmates have tried to bring voting cases to the European Court of Human Rights. Those applications are adjourned while judges wait to see what Westminster does.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24545294